How Wonderful Are These Wild And
Rugged Scenes, Still Fresh From The Hand Of God!
Call us idle
triflers if you will, but we shall ever try to read the messages
from these stone pages from the book of God, where all day long
the breezes whisper messages fuller of meaning than any lines
from the hand of man.
But to return to the view from the mountain peak, glorious,
indeed, is the scene spread out below you from Mount Marcy. How
unlike the Alps is the prospect you obtain from its summit.
True, you will see no snow-capped peaks and shining glaciers,
but what a chaos of gray and green mountains extend as far as
the eye can reach.
One writer gives this vivid description of the scene that meets
the enraptured gaze of the traveler here: "It looked as if the
Almighty had once set this vast earth rolling like the sea; and
then, in the midst of its maddest flow, bid all the gigantic
billows stop and congeal in their places, and there they stood,
just as He froze them grand and gloomy. There was the long
swell, and there the cresting, bursting billow - and there, too,
the deep, black, cavernous gulf." Those in our country who think
only the Alps and Apennines can inspire awe and veneration
should force their way through thick fir, dwarf evergreen and
deep moss to the top of Mount Marcy, where it pushes its rocky
forehead high into the heavens. Here in these beautiful wild
regions you will find lakes over whose waters you may glide in a
canoe, whose forest-clad shores seem never to have been marred
by the axe of civilization. Here as the sun sinks to repose amid
these purple mountains, and the last rays of light on their
waters seem like sheets of fluid gold, and the lonely cry of the
loon breaks the solitude, you too will feel that you do not need
to go to Europe for natural mountain beauty when such glorious
scenes lie spread out before you.
We shall never forget our first impression of Lake Colder,
perfectly embosomed among the gigantic mountains which rise it
all their wild and savage grandeur around it. What absolute
freedom and absence of conventional forms are found here by him
who loves Nature as God made it.
Toward Canada stretches the vast expanse of Lake Champlain with
its numerous islands, while along the eastern horizon the
distant Green mountains lift their granite summits, at whose
bases the charming city of Burlington lies dreamily silent
beneath its smoky veil. Far away to the north and west repose
many lakes. Some lie dark and silent beneath the shadows of
their guarding mountains, others reflect the shy above in
silvery blue sheen as if to cheer this vast and lonely solitude.
How your thoughts reach out toward the Infinite as the wondrous
vision unrolls before you! This interminable mass of different
shades of green and gray presents one of the most beautiful
scenes your eye ever gazed upon.
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